


The Elf Who Saved Christmas

by Narya_Flame



Category: Multi-Fandom, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Father Christmas Letters - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adventure, Belief, Christmas, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Goblins, Hope, Magic, Maglor (Tolkien) Through History, Mysterious Horrors Under The Earth, Oxford, Post-Canon, Silmarils, The North Pole - Freeform, The Northern Lights, Yule, taking liberties with canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-09-26 13:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame
Summary: Maglor leads a quiet life as a Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.  When his scars begin to hurt on one damp November evening, the last thing he expects is to find a letter on his desk summoning him to a mysterious meeting - a letter signed only with an initial, and bearing a stamp from the North Pole...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/gifts).

> Inspired by [this gorgeous piece of art.](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/bunn/5531459/786941/786941_original.jpg) I have embedded it at the end of the fic; the piece embedded at the beginning to illustrate the opening scene was an extra, because bunn is lovely.
> 
> Find more of bunn's work [here](https://www.deviantart.com/victoriaclare) on her DeviantArt page.

_ **Oxford** _

_1996_

There was a drab, lingering warmth to the November air, as though autumn had yawned and stretched its arms and settled down for a nap. A few skeletal leaves clung to the trees that arched over Magdalen Bridge, refusing to let go and make way for the stinging frosts of winter. They rustled and sighed as a low breeze curled through the streets, sending ripples along the Cherwell and stippling orange lamplight across its gleaming surface.

The streets were quiet. Students huddled inside gated colleges and rented houses, cramming for exams. Clouds hung heavy over the spires and rivers, hiding the stars and threatening rain. Locals tutted and drew their curtains and stayed at home.

It would not rain, Maglor knew.

He leaned his forearms against the parapet, left hand folded over right, hiding his scars out of habit. There was no-one around to see, but after thousands of years one grew weary of the double takes, the smothered expressions of pity and revulsion, the hesitant questions and the attempts not to stare. He could wear gloves, he supposed, though in the mild English climate he didn't really need to, and the extra fabric and heat were an irritation. Besides, nowadays, gloves outside the depths of winter would raise more questions than the scars themselves.

At the boat station away to his left, wooden hulls knocked together. Water sloshed softly between them. A car engine purred as it navigated the roundabout at The Plain. It was a perfectly ordinary autumn night in Oxford.

And yet.

And yet.

Maglor shrugged. _You're getting old_, he told himself, and gave a humourless smile. His official paperwork might list his date of birth as 1965, but he had been old long before there was a settlement by the oxen river crossing where the Cherwell met the Thames. _What were you expecting? That they would come looking for you, after all this time?_

He wasn't even certain whether he hoped for that or not.

Strange, though, that his scarred hand should be paining him now, after all these years. The last time had been over eighty years ago, the night before he went over the top and into the bloodbath that was the Somme. Mere days afterwards, a schrapnel wound had left him sprawled in the mud of that reeking waste land – and weeks later, in a hospital at Le Touquet, he had passed the time by telling ancient tales to a young British officer struck down with trench fever...

But Ronald Tolkien had been dead for two decades. Nobody living suspected the truth behind those tales. _Old fool_, he scolded himself again. He shouldered his guitar and turned away from the parapet.

Along the High Street, soft gold light whispered through curtains and blinds. Window displays were dark; the air tasted of smoke, and old stone, and petrol. The spires of Magdalen and the squat square towers of University College floated above the mist, and phosphorescent spheres wreathed the street lamps like will-o'-the-wisps. The four-storey gatehouse of All Souls watched Maglor tolerantly as he passed through, as though reminiscing about the generations of Fellows who had lived within, keeping odd hours and slipping in and out at the dead of night.

Maglor nodded at the Warden as he crossed the quad. _A perfectly ordinary evening,_ he told himself, flexing his scarred hand inside the pocket of his leather jacket.

Yet when he entered his rooms, alarm thrilled up his spine and pricked at the back of his neck. Instinctively he reached towards his right hip, though he had carried neither dagger nor sword there for centuries.

There was an envelope on his desk, made of thick, creamy-white paper, adorned only with an address in a thin, spidery script, and a stamp that resembled nothing he'd ever purchased from a Post Office in Britain. The envelope had not been there when he left. Nobody would deliver post at this hour, and certainly no-one would enter his room to do so, rather than slip it quietly under the door.

_Easy, now._ He relaxed his muscles into the predatory stance that had been second nature to him for thousands of years, and felt his way into the Song. What he found there surprised him. A cold wind that tasted of spice and fir trees...the soft _bat-bat_ of snow against a window pane...dawn light through ice...laughter and joy...an ancient wildness...yet he was alone in the room. He was certain of that.

He crossed to the desk and picked up the letter.

_Maglor Fëanorion_  
_All Souls College_  
_ Oxford_  
_ England_

His heart gave a double thump and his breath chilled in his throat. _They know my name..._

Every muscle and nerve screamed, _fly, fly!_ \- but he breathed deeply and forced calm through his limbs. No-one at All Souls could possibly have guessed. He was careful with his glamour; for ease he kept to his true appearance as closely as he could, without looking _too_ like an Elf, and he never drank more than a glass or two of wine at college dinners, never put himself in a position where the enchantment or his own guard might slip. Most of his colleagues weren't even aware of his musical abilities. There was nothing, nothing to give him away. No, this was something else. Someone – something – had found him. If he ran, no doubt they would only find him again.

Still wary, Maglor opened the letter.

_Codrington Library._  
_Come alone._  
_ Do not be afraid._

_I._

Frowning, he turned the envelope over and examined the stamp. The picture it bore was hand-painted – a shard of ice in a frozen landscape, and a great arc of light behind it, burning in a deep blue sky.

_North Pole Post...?_

Maglor wondered if he might be needing a pair of gloves after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Entering the library, even out of hours, was simple enough. Old locks were easy to pick, and Maglor was adept at avoiding notice. The alarm presented no problems either; his Elven senses could detect the infrared beams and avoid them, and he knew which cabinets and cases were equipped with pressure sensors, and so must not be touched.

_Insider information._ He smiled to himself as he slipped in via the western anteroom, senses wide open. _Now, letter-writer, where are you?_

There were precious few places to hide. A long, straight gallery yawned away towards a trio of arched windows. Shafts of moonlight pooled on the tiled floor and fingered their way into shadowed alcoves. Carved olive-green bookcases stretched up to a flat, coffered ceiling, looming over old wooden reading desks placed at intervals by the shelves. A statue of Christopher Codrington stood on a plinth in the north recess. Cautiously, Maglor slipped into the Song, searching.

_Fir trees and ice..._

“If you're looking for me, you could just as well ask,” came a high-pitched, irritable voice from the shadows.

Maglor paused. “Show yourself,” he called into the dark.

A faint snort. “Very well. Although when I come across a child with manners like that, I usually advocate for placing coal in their Christmas stocking.”

A small, slender shape emerged from behind the statue, clad in a grey cloak and hood that somehow, even to Maglor's eyes, blurred the stranger's outline and blended into the dim silver light. His initial thought – for the creature would barely have cleared his knee, and was too small even for a Hobbit – was that this was one of the lost Petty-dwarves, but he knew that was impossible. Besides, the figure was too slim for a Dwarf. In fact, as he approached and noted the even, ageless features, and the light behind the eyes, it looked almost like...

“What are you?” he asked, pleasantries seeming neither necessary or useful given the circumstances.

The creature snorted again. “You've been on your own for thousands of years, so I'll forgive the lack of courtesy. I'm like you, Maglor Fëanorion.”

“I don't understand.”

“I am an Elf.”

Maglor didn't know quite how to respond to this.

“I am called Ilbereth,” the creature went on. “I am the personal secretary to Father Christmas.”

A rational person would have laughed, or told the creature not to be ridiculous.

“I see,” Maglor said, although he didn't – not quite.

“You know who Father Christmas is, of course?”

“We aren't personally acquainted.” Maglor leaned against one of the wooden writing desks, more relaxed now that he'd seen who he was dealing with, although he remained alert to any shifts and warning cadences in the Music. “I know who others believe him to be; I couldn't say how close that is to the truth.”

Ilbereth smiled, and in the moonlight his teeth gleamed very white. “Truth and belief are closely intertwined, Kanafinwë.”

His father-name slid under his skin like a blade. “Alright, you've made your point, you know who I am. What do you want with me?”

“We need your help.” It was not a request. “Father Christmas has vanished.”

Maglor frowned. He didn't know much about the earth-powers that even now the world still occasionally exhaled. Many of them, like the Elves, had faded and lessened as their domains were encroached on and their anchors to the physical world frayed. Before the cataclysm, though, he had occasionally had dealings with Iarwain Ben-adar, and he did know that these strange, incomprehensible beings could not disappear into thin air. They might hide themselves at will, may weaken over time, and they could be wounded, but they could not die or be truly destroyed. “What do you mean by vanished?”

“What does it sound like I mean?” returned Ilbereth with a withering glare. “He has been taken.”

“By whom?” 

Ilbereth cocked his head, the expression on his face suggesting that he thought Maglor utterly stupid. “By the Goblins, of course.”

“Impossible. There are no Goblins left.” _And Goblins surely couldn't harm or constrain anything so old and powerful..._

“No?” Ilbereth folded his arms. “I suppose you thought there were no Elves left either.”

“You look like no Elf I've ever seen,” Maglor said – quite truthfully, although he was familiar with the depictions of Elves that filled children's picture books and danced across advent calendars and Christmas cards every December. 

Ilbereth waved a hand. “But I'm here, aren't I?”

Maglor shook his head slowly. “Even if I believed you, what do you suppose I can do about it?”

“Something that nobody else can.”

“I'm in no mood for riddles.”

“Then I'll speak plainly. You must take back what is yours.” Ilbereth's voice softened and deepened. “The Goblins have Father Christmas, yes – but they have also taken that which he guarded.”

Maglor's throat dried. He knew, he _knew_, even before Ilbereth spoke.

“A Silmaril of Fëanor.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Impossible,” he said again. His voice sounded hollow, and his soul felt somehow detached from his body.

Ilbereth shrugged. “Not really. The earth moves, Makalaurë. Things once lost can be found again. There has been a Silmaril at the North Pole for over five hundred years.”

“Five hundred...” The chequered floor of the library reeled under his feet. “No. _No._ I would know if one of them had returned; I would have felt it!”

Ilbereth's eyes flashed. “You are not the only ancient power still alive in this world, son of Fëanor. You know that – or you ought to. Haven't you wondered why our land has never been discovered?”

“Mortals see what they expect to see, for the most part.” He thought of the handful down the years that had – almost – seen through his glamour. “Although some need a nudge in the right direction.”

“That's part of it.” Ilbereth paused, then shrugged again. “You'll understand soon enough.”

Maglor closed his eyes and gripped the desk. Under his fingers he felt the notches and scrapes of hundreds of years of study by generations of Men. “Tell me what happened. How was it found?”

Outside, the dank November air hissed around the spires and curlicues of the quad. “Goblins. They have always been drawn to the North – perhaps not surprisingly. You know what dwelt there once.”

_All too well._ Maglor slipped into mind-speech without meaning to, but when Ilbereth gave a grim answering laugh, he knew that he had heard.

“Around 1453, as you reckon things, we had great trouble with them. They came swarming out of the earth like rats – more than we'd seen in hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Luckily old Grandfather Yule managed to get the Gnomes to help us; I don't know what we should have done otherwise.” Yet a faint note of disdain curled through Ilbereth's voice at the mention of the Gnomes, as though if it were up to him, they wouldn't have been involved at all. “When the worst was over we went down into the caves to clear out any lurkers – and that was where we found it, locked in a casket in one of their hoards.”

Maglor felt a nudge at his mental borders, sharp like the prickle of needles, and cool like the wind, but not unkind. He accepted the contact and opened his mind, and saw a merry-eyed man clad in crimson, crouching by a small wooden chest. There were other figures around him, but their shapes and figures were blurred. They were in some great stone cavern under the earth; stalactites clung to the ceiling, stretching downwards like great sharp fangs, and the walls were covered with jagged black runes. Heaps of junk were piled high in every crag and recess. Cutlery, cheap bright trinkets, painted pots, balls of wool, jewellery and coins were mixed in with skulls and bones and bits of bent old metal that might once have been swords and knives. The chest stuck out of the greatest of these mounds of detritus, and the air around it seemed to murmur and sing, and when the man in red lifted the lid, the cavern was filled with light.

“We never did find out how they got it.” Ilbereth's words, echoing through the gallery, pulled Maglor back to the present, and he opened his eyes. “Although they do so love to tunnel. Who knows what else they've found and hidden and lost again through the years?” 

Maglor didn't much care. “It has been at the North Pole, all this time?”

“Yes. Or, more precisely, inside it; the North Pole has a power of its own, and the Goblins have always feared it. That's why they so rarely come above ground.” His lip curled. “Not that they haven't grown bold every so often down the years, and tried to take it back – even with Father Christmas and the Elves and Gnomes and Bears standing guard.”

“And I had no idea.” The old words stirred inside him. _Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords, dread nor danger, not Doom itself, shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor's kin, whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril..._

“Stop that,” Ilbereth ordered, and the words rang deep and hard with authority. “You renounced that vow and its power over you when you cast your stone into the sea.” 

Startled, Maglor looked again at the little creature. It wasn't just the edges of his form; there was something else, something that for some reason Maglor could not see... “I wonder.” He folded his arms. “And now you tell me that after all these hundreds of years, the Goblins have somehow succeeded?”

“It would seem so.” The sharp edges of Ilbereth's voice softened. “You realise, of course, which of the three it is.”

“Yes.” Unbidden, he thought of foul little hands, chipping and chiselling away, scrabbling at the crumbled rock face as a figure emerged from its embrace – skeletal now, the skull set forever in a rictus of madness and pain, its single clawed hand still clutching the shining stone it had taken into the earth all those thousands of years ago...squeals of triumph and delight...the same wicked hands reaching out in greed, and springing back, hissing and cursing as the bright thing _burned_...bringing cloths, a box, anything to safely contain their prize...

Fury flickered beneath the long grief and sorrow, like a flame kindling under ash. The scars on his palm seared with a stabbing pain, as they had done earlier this evening.

Ilbereth reached up and touched his hand. The burning skin cooled. “Keep your anger. You'll need it more where we're going.”

Maglor breathed in. “The North Pole, I suppose?”

“No, Timbuqtu.” Ilbereth scowled. “I thought Oxford Fellows were supposed to be clever?”

Startled, Maglor laughed – though even to his own ears it sounded harsh, like a wolf's bark. “Alright. What do I need?”

“Your voice,” said Ilbereth simply. “Now, come – we must make haste.”

“How _did_ you get here?” Maglor asked, following the little creature to the back of the shadowy alcove, which housed the main entrance to the library.

Ilbereth laid a hand on the old carved wood, and whispered something in a language that Maglor didn't know. The air rustled and lifted in response. Outside the clock chimed midnight, and Maglor felt the same brush of frost and spices and gleaming light that he'd felt back in his rooms. Ilbereth turned and smiled. “I walked through a door.”


	4. Chapter 4

Maglor fully expected the door to swing open onto the quad, as it usually did.

He should have known better.

Instead of the familiar sweep of green lawn and the Gothic pinnacles carved in golden stone, there was only snow – a gaping expanse of diamond-white, glittering under a sky that stretched upwards and backwards, deep and watchful, a clear indigo-blue. Clouds of ice-dust curled and shifted on its surface as the air breathed. Its taste was wild and sharp as a blade, and it called to him, laughing, untamed, free.

Ilbereth stretched out a hand into the night. “After you.”

_I must be completely insane,_ Maglor thought, his gaze wondering as he stepped under the archway.

Frozen wind stirred his hair as the snow scrunched under his boots. He tilted his face up to the stars – brighter here than he had seen them in thousands of years. Power clung to the air – friendly enough, he thought, but it was power nonetheless, and not to be treated lightly. He closed his eyes, feeling his way into the land and its stories. He slid through the now-familiar layers of cinnamon and cloves, pine and firs, ice and magic and cold winter light. There was sorrow here too, buried deep, and danger. The land had known blood. Underneath it and through it keened a sharp strange Song-thread, silver like moonlight, an echoing note touched high and light on a violin – but there was colour too, and joy, and generosity, and hope. Good food, beloved company, long evenings laughing by the fire. Maglor smiled – and paused. There was something even deeper, something ancient, as old as the world itself. It hid itself well, as though feigning sleep, but it pushed at the edges of his awareness like a magnet.

It was in pain.

He turned to his right. A broken shard of ice rose up from the snow perhaps five hundred yards away, as tall as a cathedral's steeple. It stopped abruptly, like the stem of a wine glass snapped in two. Around it in jagged-edged chunks lay what were presumably the remnants of its upper section. The sight filled him with a sense of unease, of wrongness.

“Ilbereth?” He looked back over his shoulder. Behind him rose a sheer cliff face. He should have realised that, he berated himself – the way the air was moving ought to have given it away. The doorway into Codrington Library was gone, and so, it seemed, was his strange little companion.

“Yes?”

_Or perhaps not._ Maglor looked down – and despite everything he snorted with laughter.

Ilbereth, now clad in a red tunic, matching leggings, pointed shoes and a fur-lined cloth cap, folded his arms. “What is it?”

“You're...” Maglor took a deep breath. “I'm sorry. I just didn't think that you might actually dress that way.”

“It's the form I take here.” 

“Wouldn't you prefer something slightly more...dignified?”

“This is how the world thinks we look – or at any rate, those who believe, and there are fewer and fewer who do.” Ilbereth shrugged. “The land knows. It's easier not to work against it.”

“I see.” _Truth and belief are closely intertwined..._

“Of course, it's alright for the Gnomes.” Again the note of disdain. “I wonder if that's why they took that name. Fewer people think about Gnomes living at the North Pole, so they can get away with looking closer to their real selves.”

This didn't entirely make sense to Maglor, but he nodded anyway. 

Ilbereth tilted his head. “You feel it, then?”

Maglor looked back at the broken shard. “Yes.”

“Goblins shouldn't be able to break the Pole – not on their own. Karhu managed it once, by accident, but it didn't take long to repair itself.” 

“Repair itself?”

“Yes. What did I tell you?”

“'The North Pole has a power of its own,'” he quoted. He looked again at the chunks of ice littering the landscape, and thought of wounded soldiers on a battlefield. “And it isn't repairing itself now?”

Ilbereth shook his head.

Maglor closed his eyes again, sifting through the Music. “It can't,” he said slowly. “There's something else here.” The feeling of wrongness crept through him again, dulling his mind like a dark drug, slithering out of reach when he tried to touch it, warping his senses and the sound of the Song. “It's..._eating_ at the Pole somehow. Not physically,” he added, opening his eyes. “It's as though it wants to erode its power. No,” he amended. “Not erode. Consume. But the Pole won't let it, not easily.”

Ilbereth lifted an eyebrow. “Most impressive. You got all that, from standing here and listening?”

“Yes.”

“Then perhaps you're everything they claim after all.”

“They?” 

“You'll see.”

He turned and trotted back towards the cliff face. Maglor saw now that there were stairs set into it – _how had I not noticed before?_ – and that they led up to a domed house carved out of ice. Candlelight flickered in the windows and glimmered out of recesses in the cliff. Cellars, perhaps? 

Ilbereth turned back to him and glared impatiently. “Are you coming?”

“Of course.”

Belatedly he followed his companion onto the stairs. The wind whipped and wreathed about them, tugging at his hair and biting through his clothes. He realised as he shifted to avoid the worst of it that he was still carrying his guitar on his back.

_A lot of use that will be for fighting Goblins._

Ilbereth didn't seem to mind the wind, springing from step to step as lightly as a mountain sprite. When he reached the top he turned and waited for Maglor, smirking.

“Cold?” he inquired.

Maglor rolled his eyes and didn't reply.

“Ilbereth?” A hooded figure emerged from the door of the house. His stride was long and loping, and he was taller even than Maglor. The voice was familiar – merry and teasing and rich, a little like Fingon's, but deeper, wayward like a roving young buck. “You found him then?”

“Naturally,” Ilbereth sniffed.

Maglor stepped forward, wondering, hoping.

The figure pulled down his hood as he approached. Raven-dark hair tumbled around his shoulders. Blue eyes shone like the sun on a river – eyes like Fingon's, Turgon's, Fingolfin's...

“Arko?” Maglor breathed.

Arakáno smiled and drew his kinsman into his arms – just as well, for Maglor could no longer feel his legs, and he suspected the cold had little to do with it. “I go by Argon here.” He kissed Maglor's cheek. “Well met, cousin.”

Maglor looked over Argon's shoulder at Ilbereth, who was looking rather smug.

“Gnomes,” he shrugged.


	5. Chapter 5

Candlelight danced through the hallway inside the house. Murals adorned the walls – wintry forest scapes lit by a fierce golden sun and pointed silvery stars. Garlands of holly and fir hung from the balcony railings. The floor, Maglor was surprised to see, was tiled in a pretty geometric arrangement of blue, lilac and white, almost Art Deco in style. Elves of Ilbereth's height trotted about carrying trays of food and drink, or with toys and gifts under their arm; a taller pair, dressed like Argon, leaned watchfully over the balcony; a large brown bear plodded solemnly past the foot of the stairs, and through an archway across the hall, he spotted a small snowman shambling past. A pair of soot-covered polar bear cubs were rolling about in a corner by a neat stack of wrapped presents, growling and boxing each others' ears.

“I'd have come for you myself,” Argon told him as he bolted the door behind them. “Only I'm not allowed past the boundaries.”

“What boundaries?”

“This place doesn't exist entirely in the circles of the world that you know.” Argon straightened, and a shadow passed across his face. “I died there once, and I cannot go back. Ilbereth, on the other hand...”

The smaller Elf, if possible, looked more smug than ever. “You've seen what I can do.”

“Indeed.” Maglor looked back at his cousin. “And there are others?” He couldn't quite keep the longing from his voice.

“No close family,” Argon said gently. “I'm sorry.”

“In Valinor...?”

“My father and siblings, and our cousins, yes.”

Maglor nodded, acknowledging what his cousin had not said. He took a deep breath. “You do know I once asked Tolkien not to call you – us – Gnomes?”

Argon's grin, in spite of the circumstances, was infectious. “We were using that word for ourselves long before Tolkien got hold of it. We rather liked what it conveyed – wisdom, insight, gravitas...”

Ilbereth snorted.

“An interesting co-incidence, isn't it?” Argon continued, ignoring the smaller Elf. 

“I'm not sure I believe in co-incidence,” Maglor replied. He looked upwards, admiring the great domed ceiling. “This isn't at all what I imagined.”

“We don't all live in igloos,” Ilbereth pointed out, then he cupped his mouth and shouted across at the polar bear cubs. “Hi – you two – where's your ridiculous uncle?”

The bears ceased their antics and sat up straight like a pair of puppies caught with their noses in the dustbin. “Down in the cellars,” one of them replied, making Maglor start. “With some more of the Elves and Gnomes.”

Maglor glanced at his cousin.

“Nobody you know, I don't think,” Argon assured him. “Although of course they know of you.”

“I know you couldn't come in person,” Maglor said, following Argon and Ilbereth through an archway and down a corridor towards a delicious smell of gingerbread, “but why did you never send me word?”

“Would you have believed it, if we had? Would you have come for anything other than this?”

Maglor wasn't sure. 

“In any case, there are rules to this place. It's part of the price of our being here. We can't interfere with the outside world; it isn't only about physical travel.”

“You _have_ interfered, though,” Maglor pointed out. “In quite spectacular fashion.”

“Special circumstances,” Argon grinned, holding open a door to a bustling kitchen. Inside, copper pots gleamed, sweet-smelling steam hissed out of great ovens, and Elves darted here and there, stirring bright, bubbling concoctions, rolling sugar canes, and icing cakes.

“They have to keep preparing,” Ilbereth explained. “Though only Father Christmas can work the sleigh, and manage the time flow. If we can't get him back then I'm not sure what we'll do.”

He led them through another door at the back of the kitchen, and down a spiralling stone stairwell. Candles flickered in brackets on the walls, casting pools of yellow light. It was colder down here, though not as dank as one might expect from a cellar, and the air felt heavy, almost expectant. Below, Maglor heard a murmur of anxious voices, and as they drew near the bottom of the stairs the caverns opened up, lit by great leaping lamps.

A crowd was gathered at the foot of the stairs – mostly smaller Elves, like Ilbereth. Some were clad in green, some in red, and others in a soft white fabric that shimmered like snow. There were a few taller Elves, too – Gnomes, he resigned himself to calling them for the time being. They weren't hooded, and their fiery eyes followed him as the crowd fell silent and parted, watchful and wary. 

In the floor in the centre of the cavern was a narrow black hole, like a sinister old well. It was just about wide enough for a man to squeeze down, and was currently flanked by two bears – one white with kind dark eyes, and the other brown with a greying muzzle.

“Karhu and Mr. Cave-Bear.” Ilbereth gestured at the white and brown bears in turn. “This is Maglor Fëanorion.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fëanorion,” Karhu said. Seeing the bear talk was less startling this time – as was the neat little bow he gave.

Ilbereth, however, rolled his eyes. “That is _not_ his surname, you foolish hairy snowball.”

“Oh.” Karhu blinked, looking wounded. “I'm sorry.”

“It's quite alright,” Maglor assured him. There didn't seem to be much else to say. He shrugged off his guitar – Mr. Cave-Bear took it gently from him and rested it against a wall – and knelt by the hole. 

It was evidently Goblin work. They might have lessened in power over the years, but their scent – their _feel_ – was all over it. Maglor once again found himself instinctively reaching for a blade, and was surprised when someone pressed the cool hilt of a knife into his hand.

“Just in case,” Argon said, smiling – though it was less merry now. It reminded Maglor of a wolf going in for the kill.

He closed his eyes, listening to the whispers of the stone. The Pole had broken, yes..._something_ had made that happen, and the light that burned at its heart had been stolen...and the Goblins had amassed here, like wicked, wily little rats, biding their time. Father Christmas had felt the theft, of course, but the Goblins had sent a few of their fellows scurrying out...a distraction, a trap, luring him down here...

Ilbereth was watching him, his head on one side. “_Most_ impressive.”

“It isn't a skill that one loses – although Curvo was better at it.” Maglor looked up at the faces surrounding him, still wary, but won over by curiosity and fascination. “Has anyone been down after him?”

“Of course.” Ilbereth's face darkened. “But there's something down there that's _twisting_ everything. You felt it earlier, out on the ice; down in the tunnels one can barely walk in a straight line, let alone follow a trail. That's why we need you.” He nodded at Argon. “Your cousin had some idea that you might be able to feel the Silmaril in spite of that. Track it, if you will.”

“...Ah.”

Karhu ambled forward. “_Can_ you?” he asked eagerly.

Maglor met Argon's eyes. He had felt nothing from any of the Silmarils after he threw his into the sea all those thousands of years ago. For a time he had almost hated them – it had been easier to blame the stones and their creator for the loss of his family than to confront his own grief. And why would they answer to him now? They had burned him, burned Maedhros, rejecting them and sending them both mad.

But Maglor thought of the filthy creatures using some crude tool to lift the Silmaril clear of the ice of the Pole, pictured them cackling with glee as they boxed it up and scurried back into the earth. A snarl rose in his throat.

“Yes,” he replied. “I can.”


	6. Chapter 6

It was easier said than done.

Whatever power had caused the Pole to break and enabled the Goblins to sneak into the cellars unnoticed, it was subtle. It crept into the mind like darkness falling at the end of day – slowly, so that one barely noticed, until suddenly there was no light left at all. The dulling, warping effect muffled his senses, almost making him giddy.

He led a small group through the tunnels. Mr. Cave-Bear ambled alongside him. He seemed less distressed by the queasy, twisted feeling than the others, though he admitted he couldn't sense Father Christmas. Ilbereth and Argon went behind, followed by the rest of the Gnomes and some of the Elves. Karhu walked at the back of the group, to guard against any Goblins who might think to ambush them from behind.

“It's quite alright, you know,” he'd told Maglor brightly. “They can't hurt me. I'm kin to the Great Bear.”

Maglor thought of the constellation shining brightly in the sky outside, and shrugged. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd heard tonight. 

The Silmaril was not all that far away. When he opened his mind to it, he could feel the warm edge of its power flickering – but something was wrapped tightly around it, guarding it jealously. Maglor wondered if whatever it was could feel his own power questing through the darkness. He suspected so. Well, there was little he could do about it. 

They walked with blades drawn. He didn't fear the Goblins, especially not in their lessened state of this late Age, but they could certainly cause a nuisance if there were enough of them. As for whatever held Father Christmas and the Silmaril, he doubted that blades would be enough.

He shivered. _One thing at a time._

The tunnels and caves wound and twisted and dipped and rose, so that even though Maglor could sense in which direction the Silmaril lay, getting there was a challenge – and then there was the strange dark sleepy power, which pulled temptingly at the edge of his mind, threatening to tug them all off course. Every so often Cave-Bear would nudge his arm and whisper, “Not that way,” and turn them away from what looked like a promising path, and Maglor would blink and realise that though the way might _seem_ bright and straight, there was something off about it – a shimmering or an odd feeling, as though if he put a hand out to touch it, it wouldn't really be there.

_You know better than this,_ he scolded himself after the third time this happened. He heard his mother's teasing voice in his mind. _Makalaurë, how old are you?_

A sharp ache opened up in his chest.

Before they'd scrambled down through the Goblin crack, Karhu had snuffled around in the depths of the cellars and produced what he called “sparkling torches” - an ingenious invention of Father Christmas, he explained. Their light fizzed and danced cheerfully like fireworks, and once lit, they wouldn't go out unless the bearer asked them politely. Maglor could usually cope well enough in the dark, but he was glad of their white-gold glow. Somehow it seemed to clear the air a little, as well as lighting their way.

The walls of the caves were covered in artwork. Some of it resembled the cave art he'd seen in the south of France and elsewhere, drawn to educate and entertain as Men emerged once again into the light, after the cataclysm. Much of it, though, was dark and unsettling, and made little sense. Goblin work, he suspected, eyeing a peculiar scratched picture of little men riding on long-backed dogs and skeletal bats, surrounded by spiked runes that seemed to squiggle and move on their own unless one looked at them straight on.

“Where to next?” whispered Cave-Bear.

Belatedly, Maglor realised he'd stopped. He closed his eyes and reached out again, pushing the cloying dark aside, seeking the familiar burn of life through nothingness, of creativity, hope, light. There – faint, but present.

He pointed towards a small, narrow passageway, leading off the great arcing cavern they stood in. “That way.” 

Cave-Bear nodded, looking troubled.

“What is it?” Maglor asked. “What's down there?”

“The old Goblin city,” Cave-Bear told him. “It's been abandoned since the war in 1453.”

The darkness felt heavier that way, Maglor realised, and somehow more alert, like a great hungry beast coiling back into the shadows to watch its prey advance. “I don't think it's abandoned any more.”

They filed into the tunnel one at a time. Maglor had his doubts about whether the bears would fit – but somehow they managed it, in the same way they had somehow wriggled down the opening in the cellar floor. 

The passage was narrow, and the floor was jagged and sharp. Maglor thought of the web of tunnels under the Misty Mountains, and wondered whether, if they kept going, they might eventually stumble into the old mineshafts of Moria. 

It was not a comforting thought.


	7. Chapter 7

The Goblin city, when they reached it, was eerily quiet.

Maglor hadn't expected the little creatures to leap out and shriek “boo!” as soon as they set foot in their old kingdom, but he disliked the press of silence among the broken stonework, and the strange, spindled buildings that seemed to lean towards one another and tangle up in knots. 

The queasy, disorienting, muffling feeling was stronger down here. It was like being underwater – or trying to see through black treacle. 

_If treacle could breathe._

Whatever it was that hid the Silmaril and held Father Christmas, it was watching them. It knew they were coming.

He looked over at Argon. _You feel it too?_

_Oh, yes._

Ilbereth, next to him, was grim-faced and determined, a pair of sharp knives drawn and ready. The others were prepared for battle too. Maglor's heart leapt at the sight of the Noldor – even so few of them – with their hands on their swords and their lovely, ageless faces set.

_What am I leading them to?_ He recognised none of them, save for a passing resemblance to a kinsman or an ancestor – but he had taken his folk to war over a Silmaril before...

A hand touched his. Ilbereth. The smaller Elf's eyes were thoughtful, and sad, but kind. “This isn't the same.”

They walked on.

At length the ceiling rose again. They were nearing the centre of the city now, Cave-Bear informed them; although he had never been there, his grandfather had told him about it. The buildings grew taller and twistier. There was a stink of rotten wood, and old, foul air that drifted up from some terrible place under their feet. Orange light glowed ahead, sharp like the gleam from a jack-o'-lantern – and then the street opened and widened, and they could see their way clear to the square.

Maglor froze.

The Goblin city was arranged in a ring around a great, open space, perhaps where they had once held markets, or massed for war. In the centre of the square, though, was a yawning black pit. This was not like the jagged, hastily-chipped hole in Father Christmas's cellars. This was something far more terrible, and powerful in its own right. Its edges were smooth, almost polished, and it seemed to watch them like a black, malevolent eye.

_It's in there._ He knew it with utter certainty. The Silmaril, and whatever it was that ate at the power of the North Pole.

In the square, Goblins chittered and scurried to and fro, avoiding the edge of the pit. Maglor raised an arm, and the group crept closer. Karhu's hackles rose and he growled in fury as they saw that Father Christmas hung in a cage on the far side of the pit.

“Well?” Argon asked, crouching beside him.

Maglor looked at Ilbereth. “Can you handle the Goblins?”

Ilbereth snorted softly. “Can reindeer fly?”

Maglor frowned, realising that the edges of the smaller Elf's form were blurring, and that it wasn't a trick of the peculiar light. “What's happening to you?”

“You'll see.”

It wasn't just Ilbereth; all of the smaller Elves were looking strangely hazed, and he couldn't quite fix his gaze on them. 

“It's alright, cousin.” Argon smiled. 

Maglor hesitated, and then nodded. “On my signal, then.”


	8. Chapter 8

The battle itself was frenzied and short. The bears charged in with a roar, the Gnomes with a wild cry that sang in his blood, and the Elves with screams of fury. Goblins shrieked and poured out of the crumbling stone buildings, clearly having hidden away and clustered themselves in the centre of the City. They were smaller and frailer than Maglor remembered from the old days – almost pitiable, had they not been scrambling towards them with fangs bared, hammers and clubs and rusted blades in hand. The Gnomes and bears made short work of them, despatching them with swift kicks and blows, sending them flying through the air squealing, or whimpering to the ground. Maglor cut his way through the fray with ease, his muscles remembering the dance-like steps, not thinking, his eyes fixed on the edge of the pit.

“Maglor, look out!”

The voice was familiar – but richer than he was used to, deeper and somehow older. There was little time wonder as a silver-haired Elf of about his own height intercepted a Goblin that had launched itself at Maglor's back, knife drawn; the stranger caught the creature's hair and flung it against a nearby rock.

“_Please_ be careful,” the stranger sighed, straightening up. “I didn't bring you here to die at the hands of a Goblin, of all things.”

Maglor gaped. “_Ilbereth?_”

A smug smile – and then there was no more time to wonder, and the battle parted them again.

Maglor fought his way to the pit's edge. The Goblins, even in the midst of the skirmish, seemed keen to avoid it, but even so he dropped his blade and flattened himself onto his belly. There was no need to make himself into a target, after all.

_Very well, then...what are you, you foul thing?_

Once again he felt his way into the heavy, twisting darkness. It rolled upwards from the heart of the pit, calling him, whispering at the edges of his mind – and there, too, was the Silmaril. He couldn't see it, but he _felt_ it, burning, brightening, calling. His heart leapt. _Come back to me,_ he pleaded. _Fight with me._

On the other side of the pit, Argon and Ilbereth were hauling up Father Christmas's cage. The old man didn't seem hurt, Maglor noted – not that he'd thought the Goblins could have done him any lasting harm, but the Goblins were not the true threat...

Deep in the darkness, something stirred and uncoiled.

It rose out of the pit like a maggot from a wound. Its head was horned, its eyes a vile putrescent green. Its scales were the size of boulders, its fangs like steeples, its maw wide enough to swallow a house in a gulp. It brought with it a reek of rotting flesh, and the air around it felt somehow thick and unclean. Goblins screamed and ran for cover – though if it had chosen to go after them, their decaying refuges would not have saved them. 

Maglor's breath stilled. His blood congealed in his limbs. This was no creature he'd ever encountered in the Elder Days. He remembered drinking ale in an inn with Olórin after the Ring War, and hearing about the nameless horrors that gnawed the earth. Even after everything, he had only half believed him...

_I cannot fight this._

Ilbereth's voice sliced through his trance. “Call to it, Makalaurë!”

The sounds of battle echoed around him. He remembered the agony, the grief, the despair...the way his hand had burned when the stone rejected him...the months and years of agony as it healed...

A voice in his mind, stern but warm. _It will not reject you now._

He slid into the Song once more and found the Silmaril's thread, hidden behind stone and darkness. It was the fire of his father's forge; the incandescent flame of Fëanor's love for his brothers, wife, and sons; the fierce joy he had taken in life since the day he was born...Maglor remembered summer evenings under Laurelin's boughs, stories by the hearth-side in winter, arms around him when he fell, seven swords beside his own...he remembered his own delight as he'd learned his craft, mastering one instrument after another...the giddy triumph he'd felt as he realised that the ease with which he felt the Song was exceptional, that few if any others had his gift...that he could not only _feel_ the Song, but slip inside it, change it, speak with it, command it...

_Come back to me._

A light flared in the shadows of the pit. Maglor straightened and raised his scarred right hand, his eyes on the dark serpent, smiling. 

The Silmaril soared upwards and landed on his upturned palm.


	9. Chapter 9

The creature shrieked like death itself as light filled the cavern – not the orange flicker of the Goblins' lamps, or the glow of their own torches, but something ancient and pure that once had burned at the heart of the world. With a sickening slithering sound it slipped back down into the pit. The few Goblins left cowering in the square scampered away into the nooks and crevices of their city, but nobody paid them any heed. Maglor closed his hand around the Silmaril, burning with it as he followed the Song, feeling the serpent's twisting darkness retreat into the bowels of the earth.

When he could sense it no longer, he sank to his knees, exhausted and dazed.

“Beautifully done.” A hand on his shoulder; a voice that prickled like holly and shone like snow. “My deepest thanks, Maglor son of Fëanor.”

He looked up into the merry blue eyes he'd seen in Ilbereth's memories, back in Codrington Library. Had it only been hours ago? The man's red suit was grubby, his face a little bruised – and he was thinner than the Christmas cards liked to depict him, but he was otherwise recognisable.

Maglor accepted the hand up. “The Goblins...”

“Oh, I expect they'll be back in a decade or two.”

“And the creature?” 

Father Christmas's blue eyes darkened. “It should not have been able to come so close to the surface. I'm not sure I like what that forebodes.” Then his face cleared, and the merry twinkle returned. “Still, whatever it finds to feed on next, I doubt it will be the power around the North Pole. I think that lesson was well learned.”

“I'm not sure I understand what happened.” Maglor looked down at his hand, still clasped around the Silmaril, and his stomach and heart switched places. “My hand...the scars...” 

The skin was as clean and smooth as it had ever been in Aman, long ago in the West.

Father Christmas smiled. “The Flame and the Song, joined together. There isn't much can withstand that.” He squeezed his shoulder. “It had to be you, Maglor; do you see? Nobody else could have done what you did tonight.”

Argon and Ilbereth approached then; Maglor embraced his cousin, and then turned to the silver-haired Elf who had brought him here – though whatever force or enchantment had revealed his true form in the heat of battle had evidently faded, for he was back to his smaller height, and the silver hair was hidden under a bright red cap. “Well?”

“Well what?” Ilbereth folded his arms and gave a challenging smile. His teeth gleamed white. Maglor thought of a fox in the woods. “I told you, Fëanorion – I am like you. We all are. Where did you think we had gone?”

Maglor wasn't sure how to answer that. 

The journey back through the caverns was far easier, without the muffling, dizzying press of the serpent's influence. The bears had to be stopped once or twice from charging off after stray Goblins (“There'll be time for all that later,” Ilbereth scolded them), but otherwise their progress was swift, and the Elves in the kitchens erupted into cheers when they emerged from the cellar steps.

Father Christmas, seemingly unaffected by his adventures underground, declared the rest of the night and all of the next day to be a holiday. There was to be feasting and dancing; the great Christmas tree outside would go up early, with all its candles lit; there would be presents, and best of all (at least as far as the polar bear cubs were concerned, for they danced and capered at the news) the Aurora Borealis was to be switched on at once. A pair of Elves were sent over to the remains of Father Christmas's old house at the bottom of the cliff, to turn on the tap, with Argon to guard them in case any Goblins were about.

“I should really have it moved over here,” Father Christmas sighed, pouring out measures of whisky and handing one each to Maglor and to Ilbereth. “But it isn't as easy as it sounds.”

They were gathered around the fire in his private study. Ilbereth was perched on a stool, watching Maglor carefully. Maglor was leaning back in an armchair, examining his right hand.

“This is going to take some explaining when I get back to Oxford.” He flexed it experimentally – though, aside from the odd occasions that the scars had pained him, he'd had its full movement back for thousands of years. “Plastic surgery can only do so much. I might have to glamour the scars back.” He pulled a face. “Or start wearing gloves.”

“I shouldn't worry too much about it.” Father Christmas passed him a glass of whisky, and settled into the armchair opposite. “Mortals see what they expect to see.”

Maglor gave him a sharp look. Father Christmas closed his eyes and hummed an old carol.

“What did that creature want with the North Pole?” he asked eventually.

“Darkness has always sought to devour light, Makalaurë – it craves it, and fears it too, for in the end it is always light that destroys the darkness.”

“Very glib.”

Father Christmas opened one blue eye. “Perhaps. It is also true.” 

“The North Pole isn't a light.”

“Not now, no. But it remembers what it was once, before the world was broken.”

Maglor breathed in the scent of the whisky. Toffee, currants, salt. He looked across at Ilbereth, wondering. “You said the Goblins always feared it.”

“Feared it and craved it, as they feared and craved the Silmaril.” Father Christmas snorted. “Poor little fools. They were so intent on getting their revenge on me, and on not being burned by the stone, that they dropped the casket holding it into that great pit.”

“I wondered about that.” Maglor shifted in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “And why the serpent didn't devour it.”

“It could not touch it,” Father Christmas said softly. “Just like the Goblins.” 

Outside, a bolt of green shot through the sky, followed by flashes of red and pink. Whistles and whoops went up from inside and outside the house as the lights danced and curled, shimmering blue and violet and orange and gold, and the stars behind them shone fierce and clear in response.


	10. Chapter 10

The festivities went on late into the night – although at this time of year it was dark most of the time anyway. Elves and Gnomes and Snowmen and Bears laughed and capered and danced, eating and drinking themselves silly, and the Northern Lights shone over it all. Maglor played carols on his guitar, drank whisky, and laughed at Argon teaching the bear cubs bawdy songs. He had a feeling his cousin would be receiving a sharp word from Ilbereth in the morning.

As the party eventually grew quiet and the revellers drifted off to bed, Maglor wandered away to the cliff's edge. Somehow, without him noticing, the North Pole had been repaired. It was now back to being the sharp, elegant curve that had adorned the stamp on the letter he'd found in his room – although the centre of it was bound with blood-red cloth, as though it was recovering from a wound.

Beside him the air rustled, and he was startled to find himself standing next to a great silvery bear. She – for it certainly was a she – was much larger than either Karhu or Cave-Bear; indeed, she was almost the size of Father Christmas's house. She seemed to be formed out of starlight, and she radiated a peace and calm that settled over his soul and soothed his still-raw nerves.

Suddenly he felt very tired, wanting nothing more than to return to his bed in Oxford and sleep for a very, very long time.

_Perhaps that's the whisky talking._

_Perhaps._ She felt and sounded like starlight too, and she smiled as she gazed at the aurora. _Though your brother would tease you for that admission._

His breath turned to ice in his throat.

_I had dealings with Celegorm a long time ago._ There was amusement there too now, and sorrow, and affection deep as a river. _We were all much younger then._

Maglor closed his eyes, remembering his brother's laughing face as he chased after Huan through the grounds of the summer house, the depth and ferocity with which he felt _everything_, and his brash bravery in the face of Morgoth's armies. Celegorm would have laughed at him down in the caves tonight.

When he looked back up, the Great Bear was gone.

“Cousin?”

Argon had followed him out to the cliff's edge. Ilbereth trotted at his side.

Maglor smiled at them both. “Time for me to go, I think.”

“Go where?”

“I think we both know the answer to that.” He pulled Argon into his arms, carefully storing away the memory of what it felt like to hold a member of his family close, their cheek warm against his, hair tickling in the nape of his neck. “I'll see you again.”

Argon nodded. “And I don't think it will be long, as we reckon things.”

Maglor looked at the North Pole, its red binding like a gash, and shivered.

He followed Ilbereth back down the carved, icy stairs, teeth set against the wind, carefully gripping the straps of his guitar case. When they reached the bottom, day - of a kind - was breaking, and the Aurora was fading from the sky.

Ilbereth led the way back over the tundra to the place in the cliff he had opened before. He lifted a hand to the sheer frozen wall, and then paused.

“Oxford?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“For now.”

“Very well, then.” A silvery archway appeared in the ice; it shone brightly for a moment, like _Ithildin_ of old, only reflecting the soft pink and lilac wash of the Arctic dawn – and then it melted away without trace, opening back into Codrington Library. Ilbereth turned back to him. “We ought to thank you, I suppose.”

“Ilbereth...” Maglor paused in the doorway. “Did I ever know you? Before this, I mean. Elves shouldn't forget, and yet -”

Ilbereth shook his head. “Makalaurë, when I saw you last, you would not have known your own mother if she stood in front of you.”

Maglor felt the cool, withering touch of guilt in his stomach.

“Go.” Ilbereth gave him a gentle push. “You're letting snow into the library.”

It was true; the wind was blowing chunks of powdery snow through the archway and into the recess. The gallery smelled and felt as it always did – watchful, aloof, with the faded vanilla scent of old paper in the air. The chapel bells were still ringing the hour, and the light pooling on the floor was the hazy silver of an autumn moon.

“Oh, Maglor?”

He turned.

Ilbereth folded his arms and smiled – this time with genuine amusement. “I know what you have in your pocket.”

Maglor grinned and saluted, and stepped forward through the recess as the clock finished chiming twelve.

**Author's Note:**

> Bunn, I remembered the day before reveals that Argon isn't a favourite of yours, and there wasn't time to change it. I hope his inclusion doesn't spoil things.
> 
> Father Christmas has Art Deco tiling in his hall because his house was canonically rebuilt in the 1920s, at the height of the movement.
> 
> The dark serpent under the earth was inspired by this passage in _The Two Towers_ (the speaker is Gandalf):
> 
> _“Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels. They were not made by Durin's folk, Gimli son of Glóin. Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he.”_


End file.
